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Danny Elfman To Bring Back Classic Superman Score In Justice League

Billboard is reporting that Danny Elfman, composer of the upcoming Justice League movie, plans to bring back the classic John Williams Superman theme. According to Mr. Elfman…

There are a few little fan moments. I instated a moment of the Wonder Woman theme that Hans Zimmer did for Batman Vs. Superman, but I also had two minutes where I had the pleasure of saying, “Let’s do John Williams’ Superman.” and that for me was heaven, because now I have a melody to twist, and I’m using it in an actually very dark way, in a dark moment. It’s the kind of thing that some fans will notice. Some won’t. It’s a moment where we’re really not sure whose side he’s on.

The people at DC are starting to understand we’ve got these iconic bits from our past and that’s part of us, that’s part of our heritage — we shouldn’t run away from that. Contemporary thinking is, every time they reboot something, you have to start completely from scratch — which, of course, audiences will tell us again and again, is bullshit. Because the single-most surviving and loved theme in the world is Star Wars, which they had the good sense to not dump for the reboots. And every time it comes back, the audience goes crazy.

This is welcome news. As he pointed out in his comments, the fact that studios feel the need to constantly start over and fresh can lead to fans of the series being left out. Per the example he gave, Star Wars reignited the franchise with The Force Awakens which for all intents and purposes was a soft reboot. A new cast handles the heavy lifting in the new stories yet the old guard are still around to pass the torch. Most importantly, the music stays the same.

If ever there is a piece of music so identified with a character, it’s the Superman theme song. It will go down as one of the best pieces of movie music in history. I’m excited to hear it is back in the DCEU. What I would love would be the return of Elfman’s classic Batman theme. One can only hope.